1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to search-engines. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for ranking search-results produced by a search-engine.
2. Related Art
Upon receiving a query from a user, a search-engine will typically identify a set of search-results that are related to terms in the query. In most cases, the search-engine will present the search-results to a user in an ordering based on a relevance measure. However, often a user desires to rank the search-results by a specific attribute, such as price or date. To do so, the user specifies the desired attribute, and the search-engine subsequently re-ranks the search-results based on the desired attribute.
However, if the search-engine re-ranks search-results based on a desired attribute, the search-engine may list less relevant search-results before more relevant search-results. Consequently, the user may have to browse through several pages of less relevant search-results before finding more relevant search-results. This problem is often exacerbated by people who adjust a specific attribute to affect the ranking of specific search-results. For example, a merchant may reduce the price of a product by a nominal value to ensure that a search-engine lists the product first. This often causes the search-engine to list less relevant products before more relevant products.
Hence, what is needed is a method and apparatus for ranking search-results without the problems listed above.